The 10 Best Outdoor Speakers of 2024

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Regular ole bluetooth speakers ain't gonna cut it out here, boss. An outdoor speaker has to be waterproof, dustproof, and powerful enough to fill the open air with the sound of that summer playlist. But there are a fair few portable Bluetooth speakers that can do the trick. Marshall makes a great weatherproof speaker, as do other giants in the bluetooth game.

But if you're not sure whether you want an old-school wired setup or a smaller weatherproof bluetooth speaker, you can find more in-depth details regarding each type at the bottom of this article. To speaker generally though, wired outdoor speakers take more setup, but they're made for large outdoor spaces. Bluetooth speakers are mobile and can be moved to wherever you like, as long as it's in range of a phone.

What the dedicated outdoor speakers and portable Bluetooth speakers on this list share in common are toughness appropriate for the outdoors; they're all resistant to water, weather, and gunk. Any of the options on this list can level up your outdoor setup. Connect them to a weatherproof TV, and you can watch the big game al fresco. Or, use them as classic patio speakers when you're grilling this summer. No matter your intentions, here you'll find the 10 best outdoor speakers. May you never have to sit through another moment of silence.

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FreeSpace 360-P II In-Ground Loudspeaker

Say your landscaping is impeccable. It’d be a shame to plop a big white speaker in the middle of the rhododendron, or one of those speakers shaped like an artificial rock. Bose, which makes reliably excellent audio equipment, has a wired speaker in a natural-looking green that you can plant, almost literally, in the ground. It'll cost you about $400 for just one, but with its 360-degree sound, one might be all you need.

Outdoor Set

Want your outdoor speakers to be fully paired with your smart home setup? The Sonos outdoor set pairs your physical speakers to an indoor amp that can be registered as a smart device in whatever setup you've got going on.

They're easy to mount and setup, all you need to do is run wire from the speakers to the amp. Once that's done, you can control your music from your phone or via your voice assistant like any other Sonos speaker. And on top of all that, they sound great. Only second to the Bowers & Wilkins speakers just below.

AM-1 Outdoor Speakers

Bowers & Wilkins’ weatherproof AM-1 speaker casts a wide sound-wave to cover all the outdoor areas well, that you've got. Plus it carries an extra potent punch-up on the bass for an adequate oontz-oontz impact. Overall, when it comes to sound dispersion and transparent audio fidelity, Bowers & Wilkins takes the crown.

Natural Sound 5" 2-Way Outdoor Speakers

When you'd like to set 'em and forget 'em, Yamaha makes a pair of weatherproof outdoor speakers that you can mount to your house. Like almost all mounted outdoor speakers, they must be wired to a receiver of some kind (the wires are included, the receiver is not). Unlike almost all mounted outdoor speakers (the ones that aren't absolute crap, that is), they cost just a little something over a hundred bucks. The sound quality won't be as rich and full as you'd get for something more expensive, but it's surprisingly solid for the price.

LU43PB 3-Way Outdoor/Indoor Speakers

If you don’t subscribe to "go big or go home" when it comes to outdoor entertaining but you also don’t want to sacrifice fine audio fidelity, Dual’s LU43 speakers are for you. Coming in at just about $50, their sound-stage is just wide or loud enough to entertain your next barbecue out back. They don't pack too impressive an audio punch, but the capability has got enough bass boost and clear enough pitch to still be considered a great value.

Atrium4 Outdoor Speakers

Similar in set-up to the Yamaha duo, Polk's pair of outdoor speakers are a bit more expensive because they have better innards for better audio range—from bass to mid-range to treble tones. It doesn't take an engineering degree to set them up, though you'll need to buy the necessary accessories. Once you do, you can keep them outside all year round, as they're "all-weather certified."

BTP-525 5.25" Wireless Bluetooth Outdoor Patio Speaker

If you absolutely do not want to wire a damn thing, and if you absolutely need your outdoor speaker to be permanently mounted to the siding, then consider OSD Audio's Bluetooth outdoor speaker. It's a single speaker, not a set, and it isn't very powerful; there's a reason there aren't many Bluetooth outdoor speakers on the market. But you don't have to connect it with wires to a receiver inside, courtesy of the Bluetooth feature. In other words, it splits the difference between the outdoor speaker sets above and the portable Bluetooth speakers below.

Middleton

A retro look, but just as rugged, portable, and waterproof as anything on the market today. And though it's small, it's got enough umph for an outdoor party and 20 hours of playtime on a single charge. Marshall's bluetooth speakers also have Stack Mode, where you can connect to as many other Middleton speakers as you'd like. Get 10 of them together, and set up a proper stage-style stack.

Move Smart Speaker

Onto the realm of portable Bluetooth speakers. With audio that sounds as if it were conducted by Hans Zimmer and design worthy of a modern art museum, the Sonos Move is a favorite portable Bluetooth speaker of ours. Take it in the bathroom for your morning shower. Cart it into the office to blast the soundtrack that gets you in your most productive headspace. Set it up in the kitchen to make dinner, then grab it and head out to the back porch for a nightcap. It has a handle, it's weather resistant, it charges on a base, and it'll withstand extreme temperatures.

Boombox 2 Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker

For those seriously committed to having a good time under the sun or stars, JBL's Boombox 2 has massive sound. Bass for hours and days. Its design hearkens back to the old-school, boombox-on-shoulder era. And when the good times have drained your phone battery, it has charging ports to give you a boost. Should it get dropped in the pool or doused in beer towards the end of the night—you know how often it happens—that’s A-okay, since it's waterproof.

Dedicated Outdoor Speakers

They're truly built for the outdoors. You'll have to read the instruction manual and pull out a drill to set these speakers in place, and they often require a wired connection to a receiver—which you likely already have set up inside with all your indoor stereo equipment. Plot this wired route out before you start punching speaker mounting brackets into your porch awning. For your trouble, you'll have a loud, clear, and permanent speaker situation that blends into its surroundings.

Portable Bluetooth Speakers

They're made to move—front yard to back yard, kitchen table to pool deck, campsite to tailgate. But they're limited by its size (there's not much room on board for audio tech), and by the fact that they often come in one unit: You won't have that surround sound effect as you would with the outdoor speaker sets, nor will the audio pipe across your patio quite so cleanly and richly. But depending on your habits—and your handiness (or lack thereof) with a drill—they could better suit you.

What to Consider in Specs for Sound Quality

Lastly, let's get technical, with jargon and what-haves to see what makes a speaker sound louder or better.

Tweeter and Woofer: Really the only two apparatus in a speaker model you need to know. The tweeter helps produce high-pitched sounds (treble and vocal), and the woofer punches up low-frequency tones (the bass and boom).

Usually, for both the tweet and woof, the bigger size, the better—meaning they'll be able to disperse the sound more widely. This is especially true when it comes to bass, giving it a real nice depth. That's why Bowers & Wilkins’ weatherproof AM-1 and Klipsch's AW-650—each has large woofer and tweeter—can really populate the airwaves with hardcore bass, and why small Bluetooth speakers often can't outbid dedicated outdoor speakers in sound quality or audio power.

Frequency Response: This one, most consumers don't need to know much about, but audiophiles love it. A very dumb explanation is this: It's the range in which your speakers will output sounds within a few decibels of the desired input. A lot of brands don't even give you a standard deviation, so it's not as informative as it should be. All you need to know is that 20Hz to 20kHz is the range of sounds that humans can hear. As close to that as possible will give you reliable sound. Any data about sounds below or above 20Hz and 20kHz... you literally will not hear it.

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